Tyris Flare. One my many childhood girlfriends is coming back this year. Countless hours have been spent in my 1980s playing Sega Genesis with Tyris and company riding beasts and doing that double sword slash, double sword hilt skull crack, kick combo. And if you were feeling particularly cheeky you’d pick them up and bodyslam them into the dirt. Not only that but you could kick little gnomes around and they’d drop magical potions that you’d collect to unleash your super elemental attack of destruction. Really. Be it lightning, earthquakes or my personal favorite: Tyris Flare’s dragon summon that set all in view into an incinerating pyre.

The joys of my youth return this year in next-gen bliss with Golden Axe: Beast Rider. You can have your Halos and your Marios and your GTAs. Dibs on Tyris. The horrendous internet rumor that claimed that Beast Rider was a 360 exclusive was thankfully debunked and the official website even sports a Playstation 3 logo found here. Tyris is looking a little more hardcore this time around. I think they updated her look to keep her from appearing too Red Sonja. Now it seems they’ve injected her with a little God of War in playstyle and aesthetics, which sounds like a good thing to me. Tyris, you’ve come a long way, baby.

The title is going to rock some M-Rated content with plenty of politician provoking sexploitation and ultra-violence. As any good barbarian themed entertainment piece should. I began to see what direction they were going to take the game when I saw the following screenshot. There is like, a person fountain standing there missing half of their body parts. I am thoroughly and decidedly stoked.